Next-Gen HiFi Competition Takes Place in the Car

Car radio? Old school. Infotainment? Better. Now the next generation of fine audio is preparing to start at Continental and Audi. Is the golden age for audiophile car lovers arriving?

Continental is licensing the Auro 3D technology from its inventor, Auro Technologies in Belgium. This technology, originally developed to fill digital movie theaters, concert halls, and large auditoriums with sound, is said to outclass audio CDs. It adds height as another dimension to 5.1 surround sound, offering a three-dimensional listening experience.

The Auro license enables automotive supplier Continental to offer the technology through its Infotainment and Connectivity business segment. The supplier in this context assumes the role of a system integrator and sub-licenses the technology to its customers. The company claims that the technology scales very well. For this reason, Continental can create custom solutions for its customers in the car-maker camp. The spectrum of possible loudspeaker arrangements ranges from a simple speaker with mono sound to complex Auro 22.1 configurations.

The system uses an algorithm called Auro-Matic to upmix older formats, such as mono or simple stereo, to the three-dimensional sound environment. Over the months ahead, Auro Technologies also plans to start publishing a large number of music titles that were recorded with the Auro 11.1 technology.

Also carmaker Audi is currently seeking for new audio dimensions in the vehicle. For the new TT roadster model, due in August or early autumn, the company plans to offer an innovative sound system as an option. The system is based on technology from HiFi vendor Bang & Olufsen. This system already optimizes the sound through a feedback loop -- a microphone in the car senses acoustic dimension and background noise and achieves a near-perfect compensation of these factors.

The cherry on the cake, however, comes from Fraunhofer. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (Fraunhofer IIS) -- the one that developed the MP3 algorithm -- has developed a software called Symphoria, capable of post-processing audio signals and optimizing them for a better spatial experience. In a first step, this software applies a semantic analysis to the audio signals, separating the sound components from each other. Subsequently, these components are redistributed throughout the car interior. Thus the acoustic pattern gets more width and depth and provides a much more spatial impression, enthuses Audi. The system has been introduced to the public at the CES 2013 Consumer Electronics Show.

Like Continental, Audi characterizes the sound experience it creates, with a little help from Fraunhofer and Bang & Olufsen, as three-dimensional.

I find this an interesting development. Of course, CE companies have known for decades that cars can provide a very well-controlled acoustic environment (as opposed to inside a home where each room is constructed differently, not to mention cluttered with lots of furniture.)
In other words, home presents a lot harder problems to solve. I wonder, though, with the automotive manufacturers' newly found love for in-car entertainment systems, we might be seeing a new round of high-end audio development battle...

@wilber, agreed. But I wonder how the economics works here... Obviously, if you target your audio technology for home, you could expect more "volume." But if designed into luxury cars, you'd probably make more money. No?

I think if auto audio companies can come up with ideas that let them provide 3D surround sound without having to spend so much power in woofers and speakers, then that surplus power can be used for other tasks, especially when on-dash CPUs have to get stronger to support a multi-communication through IOT. For this the design inside the car has to be altered too, and designs that reflect sound waves to give a surround sound effect have to be made.

Indeed. Carrying the sound while giving an all round experience will be difficult in a room, given when the capacity of the room is not known by the audio manufacturers. They aim at cars because they have knowledge about the average capacity of the car.

Ultra-high quality sound systems in a car sound interesting ... but I suspect that most of the systems will be fed downsampled MP3 music which has lost a lot of quality from the original. The days of people carrying stacks of CDs in their cars seem to have given way to people connecting their SmartPhone as a music source.

Meanwhile, one feature that I was interested to discover in an inexpensive car that I recently rented was a control to set the position of the primary listener. As the driver, I want the music "centered" on the driver's seat. This avoided the neewd to twirl the balance knob to shift the sound left and right and then the fader to shift the sound front and back until I was experiencing the maximum surround sound expereince.

How we manage multiple passengers in the car and give them all the optimal experience I leave to the next generation of innovators. Perhaps there will be personal speakers in each headrest.